The Kazakh-owned Zhibek Zholy vessel, which is transporting stolen Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied Berdiansk, was detained in the port of Karasu in Turkey on 1 July.

This was announced by Ukraine’s Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

"It has been detained by the Turkish customs authorities. An inter-agency meeting will be held tomorrow, Monday, at which the fate of this vessel will be decided. Our request – a request from the General Prosecutor's Office – has been forwarded, and we hope that the vessel will be arrested, the property confiscated, and all those involved in this agreement held accountable," Bodnar said on Sunday, 3 July.

Asked what would happen to the other ships on which the Russian Federation is trying to transport Ukrainian grain from the occupied territories, the ambassador said that the situation involving the detained ship "is special because it is the first attempt to use the temporarily occupied port of Berdiansk and use the documents from this port to enter a Turkish port."

"Of course, this is illegal and, honestly speaking, it is great audacity and an attempt to essentially create a corridor for exit from the occupied ports ... in order to take this opportunity to take our property out," he said.

According to Bodnar, ships leaving the occupied Crimea carry documents from Russian ports. The embassy has appealed to the Turkish authorities regarding this, investigations are underway, and an analysis of the grain to determine whether it originated from occupied Ukrainian territories is expected in order to completely stop its delivery through the occupied Crimea.

As reported previously, the Zhibek Zholy is the first ship that the Russian occupiers have sent from the port of Berdiansk after capturing it. According to available information, 7,000 tons of grain stolen in Ukraine by the invaders was loaded onto the ship.

The owner of the Zhibek Zholy ship is KTZ Express Shipping, a subsidiary of the Kazakh national rail carrier KTZ (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy).